


Battlefields of New

by lindsey_grissom



Series: Crystal Heart [6]
Category: Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, Gen, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-11
Updated: 2010-01-11
Packaged: 2017-10-10 14:59:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/101035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lindsey_grissom/pseuds/lindsey_grissom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Wars aren't like they look in the movies.</i>  Part of the <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/series/3978">Crystal Heart</a> 'Verse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Battlefields of New

Water drips in a steady stream, the droplets landing in a regular pattern into a growing puddle beneath the barbed wire fencing. The soft _tap. tap. tap._ seems to drown out all noise of the battle until only it remains. He knows the rain has finally stopped falling and after five continuous days he knows he should feel some relief. He doesn't. He feels only fear. Because when the _tap. tap. tap._ stops, the screams will come back. The blood-curdling, heart wrenching screams of a slow death. And he doesn't think there is anything more terrifying than that.

It was nothing like they had expected sitting together in that library so many light years away. Only two weeks of training and they were sent out to fight. It wasn't enough, he knows that now, not enough by far to produce survivors. The Lithnians are tired, had been for years, and those left have all but fallen into a hopeless pit of despair. It is no place to send the hopeful.

The enemy are more advanced than they could have known, using weapons the Lithnians have never heard of. He had, but then Boe was centuries ahead of some planets.

The first day of fighting and they had fought in an area of white so pure it had hurt to look out at it and it had been cold enough to freeze the wisps of breath as they left their lips.

They had trained together, brothers in arms, and dropped in the same area they were determined to stay together. The Lithnians hadn't cared.

James had spent much of his time with the medics, and he wonders if they had never met, if he would have become one of Boe's celebrated Doctors? If he hadn't been star struck by Jack's dreams?

Night had fallen and with it brought a short cease-fire. They had awoken to a sweltering desert. The enemy had infiltrated the bio-dome; their newest strategy was affecting the environment and perception filters. Weeks of fighting through climates of heavy rain and blistering sun. The air relief would be arriving soon; bringing supplies and transport. Their last hope was a final full frontal attack. The element of surprise was all they had.

But there are spies everywhere and after one failed movement he had woken in a dark room, restraints holding him tight to the wall and low whimpers tearing into him. He wishes now that the whimpers had been all he would hear.

No amount of shaky words of comfort had been enough to calm his friend and when the lights has flashed on and he had seen the white washed visage of his bloodied friend, he had known why.

For hours their captors had tried to break him. He had known within in minutes that his friend's mind had been fractured irreparably. The razor sharp intellect had vanished to leave a begging, pleading shell. He hates them more for that than anything. Still he wouldn't break, and he had watched silently as James's body had dropped lifeless to the floor. Jade eyes had held his own as they gradually faded; the light visibly going out behind them. A part of him had shattered like crystal in his chest, shards cutting deep and long, wounds that he knows will bleed until he dies, and still he had told them nothing.

They thought they had truly broken him, and maybe they had, but with no more need of him they had released him as a warning to the allies. Him and James.

He has to move soon, while the night is still silent. It is the only chance he has to survive. But he does not think he can convince himself to care enough for action. Does he not deserve to stay here? In the puddle of mud as his James had prophesised. On a planet where even the sky refuses to cry for him.

James is heavy in his arms and with his eyes closed he can almost imagine they are home in _their_ park, sitting in the roots of his tree and watching the stars slide past high above them. Almost. Because James isn't pointing randomly at clusters of stars, so Jack has no constellation names to give him. He would have taught them all to James eventually. He would have listened, one day, to the things James tried to teach him. Maybe he would even have learnt what family really means. He won't now, not without a teacher. Not without James.

If he stays in his fantasies of ordinary days on Boe, he doesn't have to face the corpse he holds, and the guilt that threatens to drown him.

So Jack dreams.

He dreams of James's sudden heart beat, his coughing breath and croaking laugh when he learns that Jack thought him dead. He dreams of ending the war, returning to Boe victorious and receiving and accepting entrance to the Agency with James right there beside him.

He dreams of them sharing quarters, days of tough lessons and nights of drinking and fun. He dreams of completing his training and turning to James as he is awarded Captaincy. He dreams of standing as Best Man as his friend marries in the near forgotten tradition he always wanted, of being Uncle to his brother's children and helping them get into the mischief of his own youth.

He dreams of them getting old together, sitting in their park with grandchildren. And he dreams of death, taking them when they have lived a full life, but even as he dreams, the wrinkles fade away, and as the light goes out in those green eyes Jack sees a boy barely seventeen fall away from the life he could have had.

He knows then, as his eyes shoot open in the dark; he doesn't deserve those dreams. Doesn't deserve this death of innocents. He deserves to keep on living no matter how much it hurts. He deserves to carry the guilt for his Best Friend's death.

It is his fault after all, is it not? Isn't it all his fault? James should not even be here. He should be on Boe having never left; his head in a holobook, thoughts of medicine and family on his mind. Not dead on a holographic battlefield with a friend too broken to even cry for him.

Jack will survive. That is what his destiny is he realises; to survive. He will continue to fight and he will take James's body back to his family. He will finish his lessons and become a Time Agent and never get close enough to hurt anyone else.

He'll become a lone traveller through time and space, and any misfortune that befalls him, will be his alone. Because the Doctors have been right all along, and there is nothing he can do to change that.

He should never have been created.

 

**End.**


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